


Labyrinth

by Mer_des_Miroirs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Labyrinth (1986) - Freeform, Labyrinth References, M/M, Psychology, References to Jane Austen, Romance, pride and prejudice - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-01-01 23:32:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mer_des_Miroirs/pseuds/Mer_des_Miroirs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught between a disgrace and an opportunity, Harry enters the Labyrinth of his and Tom Riddle's hearts.</p><p>Or: Set in early 19th century England, Harry is unwittingly a Squib growing up in a magical family. Faced with a task to marry an eligible heiress before his seventeenth birthday or the resulting loss of the Potter fortune, Harry would do anything to make his mother proud. Too bad there is a Tom Riddle to not only screw with Harry’s desperate plans, but to also force a potion of questionable properties down Harry’s throat – and the Midsummer Night’s dream begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Elvie and Canni, for inspiration and support. <3

It was the Midsummer Night. Harry James Potter leant against a Corinthian style column, surveying his sister twirl in a decidedly accomplished manner hand in hand with Tom Riddle.

Hermione‘s dress was immaculate in both colour and style. Riddle wore pantaloons.

Pantaloons as in an assembly of skin-tight cloth reaching from Riddle’s waist to his ankles.

A unit of green velvet, showing every curve and sinewy, as if a horse leg – and was not Riddle a rider par excellence?

The rustic idyll was further embellished in the crotch area by something that could be either a drunken cat‘s scribble or Celtic knots. Accounting for Riddle’s famous ancestry, Harry deduced the lines must amount to silver snakes purposefully biting their tails.

Harry prided himself not for knowing all kind of things about Riddle. Even less so Harry enjoyed learning a plurality of those things within the mere three hours of having Ginny Weasley enter the House’s parlour, conjuring an exclamation of – “Netherfield Park is let at last!”

Ginny makes a vivid gesture with gloved hand, cheeks flushed from the walking exercise, dress heavy with earth and rain – “To Riddles!”

“You do not say… The Riddles!?” aloud Hermione’s book meets table.

***

It has taken Harry five years and three hours to learn all things about Tom Riddle - the beau with dark curls, darker eyes. The way Riddle dressed with a dignity of a pirate; Sir Francis Drake alike he conquers the female Armada. The way, he engaged Hermione as if a tower a princess. They could play a waltz, Harry thinks, yet what a Lady may voice an objection, may notice even, if she is drowning in Riddle’s thousand and a one way of radiation.

How extraordinary his brilliance is! Dear Hermione even exempts Riddle from the competition of wits she is otherwise too fond to engage in, blowing savage minds to pieces in the height of her education. But Riddle, he takes Hermione’s head apart; and Ginny’s legs ache for Riddle, as she was unmistakeably the next one in the row of Ladies most eager.

Harry leant against a golden column in the ballroom seemingly larger and more opulent than it ever been with the previous owner, and very French - a feat Harry should think disconcerting, nobody else does.

Harry fumed. Harry crossed his legs all the way from white breeches to white socks to black slippers.

Harry remembered a conversation he was not invited to. His mother was screaming with her husband in a way only his mother does. Her voice was decisively low. Severus held her hands as if on the honeymoon. “Harry is turning seventeen by the end of July,” she said. “I fear for him,” she said.

“They won’t have him” she said. “They are vultures” she said.

“You know the laws, Lily” her husband spoke. “Our laws, Lily.” Severus spoke. There is not much to be done,” Severus spoke. “You know what is to be done,” Severus spoke. 

“I won’t let them have my baby’s inheritance!” Lily cried. Lily was angry. Lily is a valkyrie. It is war.

Lily sent a spear directly in Harry’s heart – “Harry must be married by the end of the month and to a proper heiress. That is the only way. He must pass his blood to an able child.”

“There is a ball at the Netherfield Park two days from now,” Severus agreed. “But what heiress would have him? She better come from an old and influential family with close ties to Potters. Malfoys, Blacks to name few. He might get it on with Bellatrix Black, I wonder…”

“Not a chance!” Lily exclaimed. “They have been mourning Lady Dorea’s decision ever since me and more so - Harry! They are the most outdated assembly of prejudiced fools, the Blacks! Obscenely rich too.”

“Take in account Bellatrix’ rebellious nature; and if certain rumours are as true as they seem to be, the girl is to adore Harry’s looks as there is a distinct similarity between the two of them… Harry’s meekness, however, is to fit most beautifully with Bellatrix’s dominant ways. She might want him. She actually might want him.”

“If rumours are true” Lily shrugged her shoulders in contemplation “Miss Black is already on her ways after the “real deal”. No, our best bet lies with Ginny Weasley. She is a girl of sweet disposition and ever so fond of little Harry. Added, her family has more children than would be advisable compared to the ability to provide for such, House Potter may be generously foregoing Miss Weasley’s dowry in exchange for her purity.”

“There is also Arianna Dumbledore to think of,” Severus added. “Her brother’s great reputation should outweigh the poor girl’s diminished senses. Her brother’s apparent interest in the Potter heirlooms should make him agreeable to join his house and Harry’s.

Then, there is Dolores Umbridge…”

“She is ugly, with neither apparent talents nor taste nor a standing to really speak of!”

“Exactly, my dear,” Severus poured his wife and himself a glass of wine. “You know that it is not in our right to get choosy. Heavens help, Harry is ending in court with those more privileged than he is.”

“Lavender Brown,” his mother frowned. “She is a pretty girl. She might appeal to a healthy young man Harry is. I want my child to at least like his wife.”

“Lavender Brown rather lacks brains and is more on the easy side. Her reputation is questionable” contemplated Severus, “We might have a chance yet.”

“I hope, I hope so,” Lily placed her glass on the side table, her hands were shaking. “But what happens, Severus. What is if they won’t have him?”

“There is always the alternative…” Severus looked his mother directly in the eyes. Lily fled - “No. No.”

“Hermione is a clever girl with a great sense for family honour,” Severus ended. “If things get worst, she won’t stand for her brother to lose everything he has. We have this one option. It won’t be disputed, as it is the old way Slytherin himself favoured.”

“You are right,” conceded Lily. Harry left the room as if a ghost. Later Lily talked to her son with a voice calm and steady, asked to pay a special attention to the girls mentioned. Painted Harry a single man in possession of a good fortune, who must be in want of a wife. Harry promised his mother his obedience.

Harry makes sure he is the best son his mother could ever have.

***

Harry leant against a tall pillar and took notice, how all the eligible heiresses are in want of Tom Marvolo Riddle – of his peculiar manners and arrogant face and deft tongue enticing laughter from Hermione’s lips.

“Do not you understand?!” Harry shouts at Hermione, as she follows him downstairs at last catching on her brother’s distress, “He is not just ruining my chances of marriage. He is ruining yours!”

Hermione is looking at him in disbelief, and Harry cannot find it in himself to speak his heart. You should seek someone you like to get engaged to right now - Harry would say - not wasting your time on a bloody dandy. Since I am pathetic as it is, Hermione, you at least can be safe.

Harry contemplates the patterns of the green marble floor. Harry thinks of The School. Not of the Eton College he himself attends, Harry thinks, - about The School.

It was because of The School that Harry knew for sure he was different.  

It was after the years of activity and conversations ceasing whenever Harry entered the room; betimes hopeful but mostly pitiful and then - pitiful glances Harry received. It was when Hermione attended The School just as Severus and Harry’s parents and everyone else and the Tom bloody Riddle did – Harry did not, that Harry knew he was different.

Normally, Harry should be appalled for there is a school both girls and boys go to, mixed classes even! Harry must be proud to learn at a place His Majesty himself has most favoured.

Harry spent years guessing whatever skills Harry lacks to successfully attend The School. At Eton Harry studied the full range of subjects – obligatory Classics, and with the help of the hired tutors Harry studied sciences, and studied hard. He excelled at the playing fields. He was good, good-looking even!

And not welcome.

Lately Harry had an insane idea that whatever separated Harry from his family and friends was of an occult nature. Nothing less than Magic, Harry thinks, can help him now, make Harry belong.

Hermione frowns at him, as if to say – “What is your problem?!”

He bites down the misery, just as he swallows the truth. There is only one way to go –

“We are lovers.”

Hermione for all her brilliance cannot follow.

“Tom, Tom Riddle and I, we are lovers,” Harry clarifies. “Tom, he tries to prevent suspicion of our… activities, engaging the girls, but you are my sister. I cannot have Tom to string you along as well, hurting you. I would you rather not live of false hopes.” 

Hermione wears a look of disbelief, but for one reason or other decides to humour her delusional elder brother – “But how would you have met?”

As you do not frequent the same circles, was implied but not spoken.

“Well,” Harry blushes as if from natural causes, “Last year in town we kind of run into each other. The Riddles have a house there” Harry ventures an educated guess.

“Our eyes crossed, and I knew he was the one for me!” Harry layers thicker, seeking inspiration in his mother’s recreational reading. “We rode the park together. Tom on his huge black stallion next to my Hedwig. We were quite a pair. We went to the clubs, drowned a few shots of Whiskey, kissed… and have been in touch ever since, if you follow me. Tom and I, we are not that different. It is serious with us. Deadly so.”

Hermione’s hand approaches Harry’s forehead, looking for the signs of fever. Harry explodes –

“I only have your best interest at heart! Why cannot you believe me, just once, just as you feel yourself having a chance with Riddle?! Am I not good enough, Hermione? Compared to you, am I not good enough? Cannot I be craved for? Do you think it cannot be I instead of you that is wanted by someone desirable? But so you know – He loves me! Tom loves me!”

Hermione lowers her head in shame. She is going to deny what Harry knows. The truth. In their world it is true - that Harry is no one and Harry’s opinion counts not. It is for this reason that Harry needs to appear a chosen equal of someone worthy – someone like Tom Riddle - so his words matter, so he can save his sister from Riddle’s influence.

“Is that true? Is that true, Tom?” Hermione’s voice trembles. Harry swirls on the spot, his stomach contracting. There, in the shadows, stands Riddle.

The arms crossed, red rose pinned to his waist, Riddle’s lips curl. Otherwise, he keeps quiet.

“So it is… true.” Hermione takes the silence a confirmation, “I, I would not want to intrude,” she cries and for an instant Harry thinks as if his sister can vanish on the spot, but she catches herself; walks out of it, head high and solemn.

Harry hides his anxiety with anger – “Hah, Riddle! Are not you the scum, I thought you to be! You cause a Lady distress, whereas you could dispel it all with a word. You obviously do not care for her! She is better off without you!”

Riddle smirks – “Hermione is a reasonable girl. She will listen even after I take myself a moment to deal with her outspoken sibling. Spreading rumours of that kind… I wonder” Riddle leans his head to the side, assessing him, and Harry feels his blood chill – “A moment later we all can have a good laugh about it.”

Curse Harry’s mouth. This story, it could ruin…

“But for now, you shall be my priority. Do not you just love it, precious?” Riddle is close, seizes Harry’s chin and Harry allows it, frozen – “Do not you adore to be the centre of attention? My attention…”

Harry understands that he but nullified whatever dim chances he had for an acceptable marriage. His mother….

“What do you want?” Harry forces himself not to stutter.

Riddle lets go, he watches Harry as if he sees Harry – “You can either become the laughing stock for all that matters. Or an alternative…”

Riddle visibly enjoys the power he has over Harry. The way Harry’s eyes never leave Riddle’s lips, trying to anticipate their next movement.

“You can prove yourself worthy of my respect and therefore - help.”

“How?” Harry asks, already agreeing to whatever demands Riddle enforces.

“Nothing much…” Riddle shows straight teeth. “Win a game of mine” the other’s eyes are slits. “What do you say, precious?” He swallows whatever light surrounds them.

“Dare you?”

I hate him, Harry understands, but he gives me a chance. Whatever unfair play Riddle considers, marvels Harry, - he gives me a chance. 

Caught between disgrace and opportunity, Harry fights -

“Yes.”

[ ](http://merdesmiroirs.tumblr.com/post/63719399136)


	2. Chapter 2

Ginny was a childhood friend and a favourite of his mother, for she resembled Harry’s mother. 

Ginny is in the drawing room, occupying the armchair closest to the window, where his mother commonly sits. A large folio lies on her knees, for Ginny is an avid reader and has little patience for many an accomplishment a woman must have.

Albeit of a similar disposition, Hermione solemnly insists to continue painting tables, covering nets and sing to the displeasure of everyone involved. Harry himself cannot quite imagine spending hours upon hours with needlework, embroidering a bonnet and a purse, where he rather rides upon moist grass, practices fencing. Ginny comes along.

Harry feels little anxiety, imagining Ginny his wife, as their life after a certain event takes place must differ but slightly from their life before.

“I love you”, Harry speaks upon taking a chair for himself. “I love you, as I love Hermione. As I love Mother. I love you, as one loves a dearest member of their family. We ought to be a family!”

Ginny takes his hand, Ginny laughs – “Silly, that is the worst offer of marriage I ever received”.

“Yet, it entails the best marriage?” As the sights are favourable, Harry is not about to give up. There is much binding them from the days Harry waited outside the Weasley summer house in Godric’s Hollow a two miles walk from the Manor, sipping eagerly from Mrs. Weasley’s homemade pumpkin juice, as Ginny gathered herself for the day’s adventure.

“Why can’t I ever go in, mother?” Harry asked on one occasion, making Lily’s brows crease in contemplation, as she patted his hair. A little later Ginny forwarded an invitation for a family dinner, and as everything was ready, Harry saw a plain but homely little house, and ate of Mrs. Weasley’s excellent cooking, and spoke with Ginny’s father of modern day weaponry, albeit Mr. Weasley kept mispronouncing the names of the firearms he was most enthusiastic about.

Ginny’s youngest brother Ron also attended. He was a boy tall for his age, the face covered in freckles. Upon noticing Harry, Ron stumbled a greeting – “And you are, are you really, I mean… How do you do without…?”

“Ronald Billius Weasley, what have I told you about treating our guest?” Mrs. Weasley cried, effectively silencing whatever relationship might have developed between the boys. “Here, Harry, dear” the woman added – “Have a piece of the treacle tart”. Harry delighted in the treacle tart ever since. 

Harry learnt the meaning of poverty, as albeit Mrs. Weasley made of her trials a virtue, it was painfully obvious how she could afford neither a cook, nor a maid, nor a manservant. She kept throwing cautious glances over at the commode and the chests, as if she cleaned the way Harry betimes did – by throwing whatever there was into a nearest enclosed space and hoping desperately it stays there.

The air was of an anxiety and awkwardness. Harry has thanked profusely for the time spent, and avoided thinking of it ever since.

***

Ginny closes her book, discarding it next to a cup of tea already empty. She is as straightforward in her refusal as Harry blunt in his offer – “It is my intention to marry but for the deepest and truest love and respect a man can inspire.”

With a laugh Ginny provides –

“There is as much fortune to be found in a large family, as there is need. With six elder brothers - and a few of them married, I cannot be required to continue my family name in blood, when I can reach just as much in fame. I am seeking to support myself on my own, so my choices are my own, however extravagant they are to appear. “

“You favour work to a marriage,” conceives Harry. “But a governess?!” Harry cries in indignation. “I cannot see you a governess!” As it is the only honourable profession a poor albeit noble woman of a good education may commonly succeed at.

Ginny looks incomprehensibly for a moment, as if Harry’s assumption is out of the world, shakes her head – “I was actually thinking to seek an employment in sports, as in this area I am said to have a particular talent. I am to provide for myself and meet agreeable men at my own terms - and in a year or ten of them, I might get acquainted with the one gentleman to meet my fancy.

And yet - I am to say - it is not easy to overlook a Tom Riddle! ”

“Tom Riddle?!” Harry’s voice bears the resentment he feels for the young man – and a scent of something else, Harry himself cannot yet determine.

“Tom Riddle is known to have all of your virtues and a few more at that! I should hardly deny the most eligible bachelor of our time, albeit I am no longer of the age to give myself over to gallant illusions. So, I dance – shall I have a dance, and stay a person of my own.”

“You are strong, Ginny, incredibly so!”

“Do not laugh, you might feel it a little girl’s infatuation… Tom Riddle… Even Malfoys cater to him, where I am yet to see a bird more proud, as to speak courteously”.

Harry no longer listens. There is a thought in Harry, a thought he never allowed. A thought he vocalises, as his mind blurs Ginny’s fair countenance with such of his mother – “Would you be disappointed in me… Would you reject me if I too were to make a name of my own, rather than living up to my father and forefathers in the traditional way?

It is not much, but it might be the best I can do…”

And he speaks to his mother -

“I am sorry I am not the right son. I am not a Tom Riddle and I could never be…”

“Listen, Harry. Tom too, he is…” Ginny begins agitated, is silenced by a wall clock vehemently announcing the passing of time. There is something about the sound as well as the process itself that unsettle Harry.

“We must hurry! The ball!”  Ginny flees from her seat, looking meaningfully at Harry. “Let’s go! Go!”

He but stands there, as with each motion of his eyelids Ginny’s figure merges with the background into a multitude of dark green and silver. Harry remembers…

The clock counts twelve.

***

“Follow me,” Riddle beckons, long legs taking the stairs in a stride, flowing through corridors. Harry hastens most reluctantly, at last arriving in Riddle’s study. It is a room hardly inviting to breathe, as about every space is covered with shelves containing books, parchment, curious receptacles. Riddle motions Harry to a chaise longue well adjusted for a midday sleep that has miraculously fit there, himself busy with lighting the candles, opening a drawer. There from Riddle takes a vial the colour of forget-me-nots.

“The game you have pledged yourself to be a part of requires a certain presence of the mind and a beauty of will” Riddle elucidates, as he passes the vial into Harry’s unruly hands. “Drink it.”

“Are you trying to drug me?!” cries Harry. His thoughts race a contest of plausibility – “Drug me and take an advantage of me! In your vileness, you carry out the same rumour you accuse me of spreading!”

Riddle retains his facial expression made of marble and condescendence – “It is a rare potion,” Riddle admits. “Call it a “drug” in your obtuseness, I care not. You are to drink it”.

Harry challenges Riddle’s eyes and yields.

He swallows spit, demanding from Riddle details on his ordeal. The bastard speaks in a slick monotony, as he strokes blue vial with spidery fingers – “It is a pleasure, really. It entraps you within the confines of your own mind.”

“Within your mind” Riddle speaks despite Harry’s pale protests – “You shall find a world of your own making, an inner world to feel real. I advise you to treat it with just as much caution and self-awareness as you commonly behave - though not much would that be…”

“You forget one thing,” interjects Harry, preventing Riddle from insulting him further. “It is a game, so it ought to have rules. The condition of my victory is to be as specified as the case of your loss.”

Riddle pushes him down the chaise long, so he lies between velvet and skin. “You are to fight this “drug”” Riddle says. “You are to find a trigger within your mind. Of unknown shape and location, it has the property to hurl you back amongst sleepless. You are to find it, as it would be my loss.”

“And your win?”

Warm is Riddle’s flesh, cold his smile.

“Regrettably,” Riddle laughs, “I cannot keep you a vegetable till all time ends, as it would raise suspicions I favour yet to avoid. Thus, I am setting the time. It is not midnight. You have till dawn. I keep the antidote ready.

Open your lips, Snow White.”

Riddle sits on him a heavy burden. The fluid enters Harry’s mouth, bitter and filthy and acidic. Harry’s throat heaves in resistance, catapults air. Riddle’s hand forces Harry’s mouth closed, the other constricts Harry’s breath. Harry twitches beneath the elder boy, between velvet and skin. He sees eyes the colour of the nightmare forest, afire.

***

Harry stands next to the familiar double door. Beyond is music and laughter. Here is wood firm and festive. Harry’s hand is flesh, bones, sinewy, blood. It hurts touching the candle light. It amazes how Ginny speaks. Outrageous so!

As her voice is of an innermost conviction, Harry is taken to believe in his friend’s success. Harry wishes the girl all the best as he knows they are too close - Ginny and his mother, to avoid a kind of competition within Harry’s heart neither of the Ladies deserves. Ginny too knows.

Harry watches the door, its light brown polished and layered in convex rectangles. It was never Ginny to wait on him in the drawing room, as he was summoned hours ago. It was the one to maintain him, to guide her dutiful child. In the outer world made of memories, Lily would impart on her son the notion of a marriage to secure the living, may better feelings be sacrificed for the worldly advantage. Bravely, Harry promised to do his best.

In this medley of mind and memory, of restricted desires, of unease Harry did not know how to feel, less so to express, the past shifts.

Whereas marriage is the only provision for a well-educated young woman of a small fortune, many a younger son to an Earl seeks employment. There is a comparable boldness to have Lily’s goddaughter to encourage Harry to a step she herself could not possibly attempt at, and for Harry to forego at least five thousands a year the Potter properties entail.

Harry’s mind is playing tricks on him; tempts him on a path, he would not consider! These doors, ah these doors!

On Harry’s own merit, he has been His Majesty’s guest not once but twice alone this year. The first time, it was the old King himself crossing the Windsor Bridge to call for only eight of the Eton boys to a ball given at Windsor Castle for the amusement of the princesses.   

His Majesty might be most favourable towards Harry’s fellow students, as them attending one of the finest English schools, as he knows them all by name and house. It is both a great honour and a promise to receive his particular attention as Harry has.

Is it because of Harry’s accomplishments and manners and pleasing looks, unless… Doubt shadows Harry’s features, as he pushes the door open. There is laughter.

Boys in their best attire, Ladies all dressed up and radiant, Harry discerns His Majesty’s benevolent figure and intends to salute, as a female turns around, manifests in her colours and scent, addresses Harry.

“Call me Lav-Lav” she insists, “I look the part! I look lovely!”

She has blond curls and a poppy red dress, and her cheeks glow from dancing. She is one of the girls Harry’s mother intends for him. She is the manifestation of Harry’s duty and Harry bows obligingly and offers his arm.

If Harry is to ever manage an offer of marriage, he should at least imagine it to be a success.

Miss Brown considers him from head to toe. “You are not very tall, are you?” she says.

“They would not let me Volunteer even” agrees Harry. “Albeit, I pointed out that there is certainly less of me to shoot at!” And with the war ravaging the continent, the need for a sharp eye and endurance and agility in the soldier should prevail over the faulty aesthetics. Harry is on the croquet team, because he habitually scores over hundred! He is not to be belittled. Harry is not!

His joke does not lighten the mood, yet it leads the girl’s mind elsewhere – “Officers! What an amazing creature they are! Stately and strong, and wearing regimentals! For a fiery officer, for him alone beats my heart! Yes, we must see Officers!”

She takes Harry’s hand at last and hurls him to the other end of the ball hall, swirling through space and time, and has the perfect satisfaction. It is the June 1814. They stand among the men who had but recently dictated terms to the defeated Napoleon. Harry remembers the firm handshakes he exchanged with the Russians, and the heartfelt embrace and the kiss of the German general, so overjoyed in the common victory.

“Look!” exclaims Miss Brown, pointing at a great freckled fellow in military garb – “He is just what a man should be!”

She keeps Harry pretty close and whispers agitatedly in his ear, as if to a female companion – “An accomplished man must have at least six feet and broad shoulders. Look at these stomach muscles! He must ear for four! And now he turns! He turns!”

Harry cannot help but follow her gaze, as Miss Brown examines the fellow’s back and lower. He has a nice behind, clad in red silks, the same colour as the male’s mane. It however lacks a little more… leanness, elegance, power? Unsettled by his own thoughts, Harry denies -

“So, an accomplished man to you, it is all about appearance?” 

“What is there wrong about looking good!” she cries, “But of course, one must expect something more substantial. He must know how to dance, how to speak amiably. He must excel in the playing fields and be a born rider. He must be a great hunter, and his aim must be infallible!”

“And he must speak Greek and Latin, and know of history and of politics. He must study sciences. All gained by an extensive reading!” Harry emphasises the benefits of his education. Miss Brown is less impressed, for –

“And favour Salazar Slytherin over a Godric Gryffindor?!”

She laughs, as if having said something ridiculous. Harry is about to enquire after the both men’s identities, but Miss Brown won’t have anything of it –

“Look!” she cries, “Look”, pointing at any good looking man from a General to an Officer, all those legs and forearms, everything tight and showing.

“I must have a dance!” cries Miss Brown, and vanishes in the pursuit of the most eligible body. Harry, left on his own, soon discerns a figure to approach himself – it must be his tutor!

He hurries onward - and runs exactly into a tall fellow to have all of sudden stepped in Harry’s path and on Harry’s toes. This disagreeable man then turns around and growls at Harry, as if Harry is to blame. Instinctively Harry mutters a – “Beg your pardon” and takes a good look.

The man is Riddle.

Riddle fixes him with an evil eye, and Harry is most uncomfortable. Harry feels hot and fidgets and has no idea what to do with his hands. Riddle scowls at him, glares up and down, as if evaluating a thing for sale, and Harry burns with anger and embarrassment. He cannot stand it any longer, but he is caught in Riddle’s eye and may not disentangle himself.

At last, Riddle retreats. 

There is no hope of being on good terms with Riddle, never was.

***

“I worship him…” a hoarse whisper greets Harry’ ear and in his hands there appears a cup of punch.

“Thank you” obliges Harry and takes a mouthful.

“I worship him!” the speaker is a tall lady wearing a dress of silver and ornaments of gold. Her hair falls a dark curtain. She is Miss Bellatrix Black. She has a gleam in her eyes, as if drunk.

“I used to think that we of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black are the pinnacle of everything well-bred and able, but then he came… He, with his tainted blood, he showed me how little I knew and can! What my limits are... He shows me what I have yet to strive for!”

She gazes at the place, where Riddle previously stood. It is ever about Riddle!

“He punishes me. For my own good, he punishes me. I am writhing on the floor, arching my back, aching. My fingernails scratch against the wooden tiles. My toes curl. There is molten gold in my veins. It hurts everywhere. So good! He is so good to me! It hurts so much. I swear. I swear, I would do anything, just so it stops! Anything! And I do. I do!”

Miss Black is drunk. She must be drunk, Harry thinks.

“It is liberating. He freed me from the shackles of my upbringing! He freed me!”

Drunk and less sane.

Harry finishes his glass - a blend of rum, brandy and arrack, syrup, juice and champagne – strong and sweet. He considers how this entire scheme is a game of Riddle’s. He might as well follow Riddle’s apparition so as it possibly betrays, where the exit is.

“Freed you, or captivated?” questions Harry. Miss Black laughs, showing her pearly teeth. “Is it not one and the same?” she cries – “I am his, ever his. But he cannot be. He cannot be mine…”

Miss Black fades among the dancing faces, but Miss Brown is back.

“The accomplished man”, Harry appends, “Must be of a noble heart, so he is kind and good to others.”

Miss Brown listens not. She too is a prey to Riddle’s charms, as she exclaims – “Ah, that Slytherin! Should have said it at once! How splendid your taste is! How difficult he is to secure! You shall need all of Lav-Lav’s aid! I have just the right thing on my mind!”

Harry has a terrible suspicion that Miss Brown somehow concluded he, Harry, fancies Riddle. For sure, the girl’s head is filled with nothing but gallant adventures, but Riddle is… Riddle is outrageous so!

“I must let you on a secret,” Miss Brown chants, as she decidedly takes Harry’s arm a prisoner and stirs him out of the hall and down the corridor – “I am engaged to an influential man that cannot please me. It was my parent’s decision, but the Goddess of Love I am, I manage. I know all sorts of things.”

She throws Harry inside a dressing room, and once the door is locked, rummages in the wardrobe.  

“Too long; too plain; too festive” the girl is far from satisfied. “What a colour!” she bemoans.

Harry keeps at the edge and contemplates how to corner Riddle.

“This one!” Miss Brown has chosen. She presents Harry a pomona green evening dress with embroidered white flowers. “The colour of your eyes sprinkled with innocence” she declares. Harry is underwhelmed.

It is not for the first time that Harry is asked to wear a woman’s garb, smooth-faced and soft-spoken. They accepted him into the house’s theatre group only on the condition that Harry plays Juliet; and the next half from “Eumenides” he is Athena. He might be of a lighter frame, yet most imposing!

It is that there is no reason for Harry to wear a fine muslin gown to pass for a Lady, but Miss Brown implies otherwise. “It is a delicate matter” she says, as Harry discards his waistcoat and breeches. “We rather not draw unnecessary attention”.

Five minutes later they have taken as many twists and turns, that Harry has not an idea of his location, albeit it is supposedly Harry’s mind they currently frequent. As if answering Harry’s thoughts, there rises an activity at the end of the corridor.

Few more steps they glide and are finally in the Long Chamber. It is carnival!

***

The Long Chamber - a room dark and dirty, lined with the boys’ beds, for here sleep all the little collegers - is for once glowing with the light and heat and smoke of cheap candles, hundreds of them. The beds are all turned up. Blankets and rugs hang in-between, as to give the inhabitants a little privacy to transform for a time into traders and knights, a beggar and an Italian dancer and a judge in a venerable wig and a little milkmaid with her short petticoat and a cry of “Mi-ilk”.

There is music of all kind, from Scottish bag-pipe to cat-calls and crackers. It is loud and discordant, and every bit the night of the annual rebellion against the otherwise strict school rules. It is a long standing tradition, and as such there is no doubt that the school authorities are well aware of the masquerade, being the former students themselves. Whilst thus not officially permitted, the festivity is tolerated by the headmaster and joined by the Sixth Form prefects. The only difficulty – and the reason for Harry to have participated but once – if you are among the privileged souls to lodge at their Dame’s in the town, thus a room on your own, varied nutrition, a private tutor or two, and an early curfew at five post meridiem… - the only way to join the nightly fun was a trip down the window and back again.         

The fellow on the right has the most ridiculous costume of dressing up as a blacking bottle with painted cork and a large letters notice plastered over – “Wonder of the age – nothing like it”. They pass a Mother Hubbard. The old lady is quite incapable of keeping her dogs from exhibiting the best hunting qualities in pursuit of the omnipresent rats. A mountebank with a three cornered hat, a cart and a neighing donkey is a part of the scenery, as is the turbaned sage Miss Brown approaches. He sits on a Persian carpet and offers an assortment of powders and potions in clay jars. There is a sign drawn with a white paste on thick brown paper, naming him an apothecary.

“Well, Sir. I have a request to you, Sir. I need a success, Sir. Light in the Darkness, Sir,” Miss Brown adopts a speaking manner, which is both uncommonly familiar and forbidding. Its true owner would almost come to Harry’s mind, when the apothecary breaks open a bowl of milky fluid, its colours move between translucent gold and lilac; it gives off a spiral-shaped steam. It smells…

Harry fights a temptation to tear the receptacle out of the trader’s hands, to drown all in one go, as it is the very best treacle tart; and to laugh with a feeling of a magnitude and freedom, which is the horseback. He leans over the bowl now. There is something flowery and vulnerable, like a dream you begin forgetting with every moment awake, something unborn.

“Watch out, Sir!” They are fighting over his dreams now, and Harry, defeated, coils two steps back. He is a snake watching for the next strike.

“This is a strong potion, Sir. The Love Potion, Sir. To your desired you give it, Sir. Under the pretence of a refreshment, Sir. He shall want you, Sir. How he wants you, Sir!”

“Is want then an equivalent to love?” wonders Harry. The potion enchants Harry.

Miss Brown shrugs her shapely shoulders – “This potion, it suggests a desire to please and a craving to hold and behold, therefore a tender fixation of a kind common but to the most ardent of loves. I see no fault in it, albeit there is one known caution - with the ambition to conceive a child it must not be used. The child, they say, would be loveless, as in not able to love. Not capable of love! That is unspeakable!”

Miss Brown continues - “Yet we must not think of love and children in the same sentence. Love - it belongs to a dance and embrace and feeling good! To hands held secretly under the table and the words of passion, and to tall, handsome officers. But children belong to a marriage. Children must be provided for.”

Harry listens not. Harry thinks of Riddle. Harry remembers Riddle’s eyes, as if killing you, his artificial smile. Riddle is a creature of menace and deceit. There is nothing good about Riddle. Harry has struggled to find a reason for Riddle’s pure, unadulterated evilness… How simple it must be! Riddle was born because of a love potion! His parents loved each other so much that there was no love left to pass on to their child. But the love potion, it by definition instils a love and a care, where previously none was.

I have it, Harry thinks, the trigger to win it all. I ought to make Riddle fall in love with me, thus in his desire to please me, Riddle forfeits. A potion began this game, and a potion ends it. How fitting, the riddle’s solution!

“I take it. All of it!” Harry demands, reaches his hand out.

A tremble seizes the room. A voice boyish and fearsome cries – “The headmaster! The headmaster is coming!”

At once the lights go out. There is a chaos, not seen but heard, as the beds get shifted and the dresses lost in a struggle to end the fairy tale at once, so it makes place to an expected banality of little boys sleeping. For Harry, however, there is not a place to take cover, since he is the private pupil, the rich intruder to this common misery. Harry fumbles for the other door. He troubles for a path in the darkness, takes turns and twists, runs against a wall, tears his gown. Has no aim in his mind.

“Hey, Potter!” a voice calls him back. “We are just waiting for you!”

Harry faces his House Captain and is led inside his House’s Library. Harry exhales in relief. Here, he is safe. Here, he is to be.

***

For the common student the Eton days comprise of the four disciplines – academically it is the learning by heart and the verse-making in Latin and Greek; recreationally there are the physical challenges of football, croquet and the more expensive and not quite permitted pleasure of boating; and at last there are the traditions of fagging and flogging to help shape the juvenile mind.

The memory Harry enters is of a punishment.

A young Lord stately built - having at least two heads over Harry, struggled with the more wordy accomplishments.  Not born a poet, he used other measures of persuasion to daily reassign his verses – the eight or twelve of them – into the jurisdiction of whatever upperclassman he impressed.

Not the fellow’s first choice, it has taken many a morning for Harry to discover himself in the other boy’s room, locked, alone and mimicking Ovid.

Harry was overjoyed. This boy, this lovely boy treated Harry as if another human being of Harry’s figure and education. This boy grinned, when receiving his work well-done and quickly, and condescendingly he patted Harry on the dark tousled head.

And in the evening there was a punishment. Harry’s House Captain, himself a Sixth Form student and presiding over the football team, he was the utmost authority after the doors were shut, the adults retreating for the night. He sentenced the bully to a birching.

He reinforced the unspoken law that Harry James Potter is not to be messed with. After all, Harry’s involvement was the only reason for the offender to be prosecuted, as other boys were exploited and beaten before and to no consequence.

Harry James Potter has always received a preferential treatment.

The custom of fagging says that a lower boy is to attend the elder and more distinguished one. Upon coming to Eton, Harry was assigned along with two other students to wait on the then Lord and Captain of his House. From the first morning on, Harry discovered himself diversely entertained with speech and song and advice, whereas the other fags had to prepare tea and engage in the illegal activity of procuring beer and sausages from the innkeeper downtown. Once the table was set, their master dismissed but two boys out of three to their humble abodes, since Harry was to keep him a company. The food was good, the tea - hot. Harry felt a dear guest and not at all a servant.

A little later Harry was ambushed by his less lucky brothers in education and a fight ensured.

For the future gentlemen they were, it was the natural and approved way to solve their differences with the fists. Fighting always attracted benevolent spectators, for they cheered and drunk and celebrated either parties. Harry had bruises and an eye blackened. He gave as much as he got. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Harry saw his mother afterwards, for Lily would not leave the town unless she knew her son settled and healthy and happy. She smeared Harry’s pains with a family recipe ointment and extracted from her son a promise, he shall no longer partake in such a barbarian pastime.

Harry loves his mother. She is ever kind and attentive. She is not to be lied to.

The next day was a repeat of the previous one – up to the moment Harry refused to defend himself. At first, it was painful. Then their master appeared, got two of his three fags by the ear, manoeuvred them behind a closed door and had an awful talk.

They would not see Harry afterwards. Others too avoid Harry’s eyes, disregarding Harry’s general amiability and helpful disposition.

The Eton boys are prohibited from carrying umbrellas and hiding within an extensive outwear, as to not seem frail Ladies, so they oftentimes discover themselves cold and wet. Harry’s clothes only appear as if taken by the weather, yet somehow keep him dry and warm on the inside. On the outside, Harry is the one student blessedly above the law and especially the law of the corporal punishment to regulate the school life. Effectively, Harry is hurting all over from the blows of exclusion and the scrapes of jealousy and no sense of belonging.

Harry is ashamed to understand that despite his unprecedented fortune, his easy and sated life, he desires more.

He is inside a hated memory. A boy is to be penalised for taking an advantage of Harry, and Harry is mortified.

He knows the scars to have long faded from the boy’s body and never from Harry’s mind. He repeats the words of courtesy softly spoken to the House Captain for defending his, Harry’s, leisure time. He is humiliated and hopeless. He wants to cry and somehow tears blur his vision into thinking it is but Riddle that stands there before him with a birch rod in his hand. Riddle, who vividly despises Harry and torments him, as he has no honour and no inhibitions. Riddle is the personification of evil, and raises his hand against an innocent.

Harry moves the few steps and does something he has never done.

He gathers the bottom part of his gown, so it no longer covers the stockings and above, and places his knees on the lower step and his stomach on the upper step of the wooden block, and lets his head to fall down and his arms to embrace the wood, so his bare buttocks are raised and trembling.

Harry shivers because of the cold air, because of the screams other students emit when flogged; because Riddle should be a vulture pouncing on to the raw meat, but he won’t come. Harry twists, his knees ache, as he arches to look the bastard in the eye and perceive Riddle’s smirk. Harry notes the way Riddle’s hands knowingly caress the wet leafless twigs, salty and merciless. He too denies Harry.

Cruel, despicable man, Harry feels. There is no torment that is beneath you. You are hard, whenever it pains me, yet you would not harm me now, when I am all but asking for it.

There is no limit to my anguish, apprehends Harry, so his nails bite into the worn out wood and he shouts – “What are you waiting for? Hurt me!”

Riddle laughs, rich and self-complacent, and Harry counts the moments, gritting his teeth and tensing, so as to prepare himself for the sensation of lacerated flesh. Harry is well practiced in the art of suffering silently.  

Riddle takes his sweet time.

At last there is a sound of split air. At last Harry dances on the punishment block. It is impossible to hold still. There is a current starting at his previously white buttocks, spiralling in red, piercing deeper into the issues of his stomach and lungs. It floods all the way past Harry’s heart and gathers at Harry’s lips, strong and terrible. Harry knows not, how much longer he can withstand. “Four, five, six…” whispers Riddle lovingly. Riddle’s hand is ruthless, more so than a divine judgement, it strikes as if fuelled by hatred pervading and personal.

Harry is painted in blood. Life rushes through Harry with a blinding delight, as he breaths against the wooden block, his body in steady movement. Up and down, between the walls of solidity that cannot help him and the imaginary freedom, yet closer, closer to the birch rod. It would be terrible to escape…

He is on the verge of collapsing from pain. His buttocks scorched and knees weak. This is what you do to me, Harry thinks. Now, it is on the Outside. You can touch it. Just as Riddle’s white glove turns scarlet, as he examines my flayed flesh. You cannot oversee.

I am no better than you are.

Riddle’s fingers withdraw. Riddle discards the rod. Riddle lets his red hand hit upon Harry’s rear, sending him hard against the punishment block’s unyieldingness, - and it is enough. It rips Harry apart, his lips no longer hold back the raw mass, and it is everywhere, the scream. Harry drowns in red and white and satisfied and blind.

There is only light, chasing away the creature of shadows Riddle is, melting the block and the room. Only Harry in his stained stockings and torn dress, drenched with sweat and tears, with a parched throat, on the verge of being awake.

There is only darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was more studious than imaginative, so the account of Harry's Eton life is based upon the following books - 
> 
> “Reminiscences of Eton (Keate’s time)” by Charles Allix Wilkinson  
> “A history of Eton college, 1440-1875” by Sir Henry C. M. Lyte.  
> “Eton boy’s letters” and “A day of my life; or, Every-day experiences at Eton” by George Nugent-Bankes.
> 
> In addition this is a version of [the punishment block and birch rod](http://www.flickr.com/photos/32130530@N08/2999422869) used for flogging, as exhibited at the Eton museum. I believe the early 19th century version looked similar.


	3. Chapter 3

The first sensation was of a twig poking at Harry’s stomach through the layer of green muslin still covering his front side, and not so much Harry’s back, where wind and sun make a home.

Harry tries to turn and to twist, but there is a fainting whisper of “Please do not…” deceptively close to his ears and, groaning, Harry opens his eyes a slit.

The colours are straw, porcelain and sky blue, as they arrange into a dulcet, vaguely known face, soft lines, and not at all His.

Harry wills power into treacherous arms to shift, to rise – “Please, you must not” stammers the girl, pointing beyond Harry’s head. “You must not! You are hurt!”

As if a volcano, the sensation explodes in rivulets of hot crimson, washing over Harry’s buttocks, thighs, spine. There are open depths in his skin, crevasses of torn flesh still bleeding, gifts from the man without a heart.

Yet, as Harry contorts his upper body to cherish sweet signs carved into his skin, they are covered by flowers a golden yellow.

The girl keeps her hands, open palms down, but a hint above Harry’s backside, lets reddish sunlight sink between bony fingers, where the flowers rest.

“You are hurt but healing,” the girl bites her lower lip as she keeps her hands steady above Harry’s flesh as if a lense to multiply sunlight as it burns golden flowers.

“How…” Harry desires to ask; as if reminded of its existence his throat shudders a violent symphony, and there is but one word parting from Harry’s lips – “Water…”

The girl ignites a scarlet red, blood flooding her cheeks, and awkwardly stumbles on her feet, she leaps out of Harry’s sight. In his solitude Harry takes a note how the pain fades from his body as his mind inhales the flowery fragrance and he yawns a heartfelt breath.

The girl is back – first in sound of her steps, then with eyes faithful and true, she offers Harry a stone cup filled to the brink with translucent water. Harry takes a mouthful, first icy, then cold, then melting through Harry’s throat and stomach as he coughs up blood, tears through skin and sinewy to rip it out, rip it out, too hot, no more. Harry trashes no longer mindful of the scratched back, as he claws inside his flesh, grazes white bones, for acid is his blood, his blood aflame.

He turns this and that way, leaving body patches behind; he rolls downhill right into a field of flowers golden yellow and pain stops.

“It is my fault, my fault” the girl cries on the verge of Harry’s consciousness, as well-nigh all of it is filled with the smell and colours of summer – calendula and rosemary, foxgloves and St. John’s wort, liquorice flavoured fennel…

Harry’s arms stretch lazily upon flowers and earth, glittery insects buzz in the empowering sun, tender wind wades through Harry’s tangled hair, peacefully hums Harry’s mind…

“My fault” chants the girl, voice filled with sweet dolour… “My fault”

“Huh?” Harry sleepily watches her pretty face, her eyes drown in freshly spilled tears. He knows her not.

“Ariana”, the girl introduces herself between hiccups, offers Harry shy smile. She twirls a strand of her golden hair between bony fingers and looks ready to bolt, yet there is no place Harry can better imagine for her to be than this sweet sunny field.

“Thank you for helping me” Harry smiles, reaching out to cover her hand with his, so his calm spreads to her trembling fingers.  

“I am all better now” – and he is. Marvellously, his wounds closed and ache stilled, and there is nothing but pristine flesh and joy to cloth Harry, and tatters of fine green muslin.

Harry sits up and studies the few pieces shivering in front of his chest and on his lap – the gaps, the unwinding thread, the stains in dried up crimson and impressions of ivory.

Oh.

Oh…

Harry certainly suspected that some of his Eton fellows thought the process of flogging strangely addictive, yet to be faced with the evidence of his own arousal, as Riddle finally touched him mercilessly with both rod and hand!  

That the white Harry remembers was not merely the aching pain as Riddle bit deep into Harry’s flesh and bone, but the melody of spilt seed, as Riddle pushed him against the wooden block, as Harry died a little.

Oh.

“There is a river downfield. I can show you, if you so desire.”

The girl is exceedingly helpful, yet Harry hesitant –

“Worry not. That is a good river. It flows and flows and water is sweet and kind.”

Ariana runs amidst soothing flowers and Harry follows for he would rather walk than think. Betimes, she would bend and break a flower or two till her arms were seen no more. Then at last they arrived in a green meadow next to a river’s bed.

Ariana kicked off her slippers and jumped right into the shallow stream, splashing drops right and left and on Harry’s legs. It burnt not. Encouraged, Harry frees his body from the remains of a woman’s garb, so he stood short and naked and natural. Cautiously he sinks his feet, happily he drives into the floods. Water is warm and fresh and cleans his body from dirt and sweat and unnamed fluids; and he drinks eagerly.

Ariana, clad in her sky blue dress, she sits on the emerald grass and weaves a wreath of many a jewel. Harry lowers himself under an oak tree and works on a crown of green leaves the same colour as Harry’s eyes.

“Done!” exclaims Ariana and so is Harry, as he dresses his head unlike his nude body. Ariana takes her crown to the waters, where she gives it to the waters and follows the crown with her eyes, as it draws vanishing patterns on swift river, as does the setting sun.

“Oh my!” cries Ariana. “Late! We are late!”

She grasps Harry’s hand, and they run back all the way to the yellow flowers and up the black hill.

Harry catches his breath, as Ariana – clarifies, “We have to go, but we are not ready. Not ready to go!”

“Go where?” Harry wheezes.

“To meet them, of course, the Great Gathering – and Him, Fair King!”

“But first” Ariana insists, “We ought to make a bonfire to drive away little boys, scary little boys with stones, lots of stones. Scary little boys, they are out to get you! Yes, to get you! They got her too, poor little Ariana, they got her, they broke her. She is no longer special, poor little Ariana…”

“She is just as everyone is?” questions Harry “Just Ariana? Just Harry!”

But the girl is not to be satisfied, and Harry takes her hands – “We make a bonfire. What do we seek to make a bonfire?”

Ariana stills – “Bones. For bonnefyre we ought to have bones”.

Up the black hill upon a bed of smouldering embers, there lies a decaying dragon. They walk close to it and despite having no shoes – no other garments but his crown of oak leaves – there is only a comfortable warmth licking at Harry’s feet. Between the dead beast’s forelegs there is a stone well, and Ariana smiles forlornly –

“I was not thinking right for it was a long walk to the river but a short one to the well”.

Too bad the water was poisoned by the great lizard’s kiss.

Harry approaches the ice like water, step for step, and looks down and into the depth. For a moment he sees his own defined torso, yet instantly the water moves and changes and persists in an other man’s shape – Riddle’s red lips and red eyes and luxurious hair, they enter Harry’s mind as if a bad omen, and Harry knows –

“It is the St. John’s Eve, both here and Outside. First, we jump the bonfires, and then we seek out the Witch King. But underway, I shall have me a fern blossom, for luck and for prosperity, and for making the Witch King love me, as I will have him love me!”

Determined Harry dives into the rotting dragon, unimpressed by the greedy maggots and gluttonous flies gorging upon foetid meat. He holds and he pulls and tears, and Ariana pulls too. At last they have the first rib broken, and once it is broken, it sways in the wind and is clean. They gather a few more ribs, for as Ariana teaches, they are to make a bonnefyre, and the second – a wakefyre out of clean wood, and the third – St. John’s fire, for which both bones and wood are lit.   

Conveniently, Harry discovers the birch cupboard, where the rods for the daily executions are kept, to be just behind the well. Hands full with birch twigs, Harry finishes up the three fires. The last rays of setting sun dance unto bones and wood, set fires aglow.

Ariana gathers her white skirt and jumps over the bonnefyre, and Harry effortlessly follows. The wakefyre they take together, hand in hand, laughing and hopeful, embers dance in her hair, his eyes. Then, it is Harry’s turn to lead. He runs the first step and flies the second, lean body glistering with sheen of sweat and old protective magic. Ariana laughs more, beautiful and pure, and is caught by the fire, white dress afire, golden hair afire, pretty face melting, she screams. Harry runs through the wall of smoke and the burnt flesh’s stench, extends his hand, crashes into the fire – against the wall, dark stone wall, and he falls on dark stone floor.

 

***

 

It was a painting at his tutor’s place just over the fireside inadvertently drawing Harry’s attention each time he took lessons there. It depicted a scarcely clad woman, lovely and red-haired and reminding Harry too much of his mother; and she was a witch bound and burning, red flames artistically licking white skin.

It was the painting on the wall facing Harry, as Harry fell right into it, failing to help Ariana as she was trapped inside the strokes upon canvas, - where Harry himself stands in the dimly lit room just outside of the principal’s. It is because of the room’s other occupant – a female with a broad face and bulging eyes and antiquated pink gown, as she watches Harry disapprovingly, that he self-consciously runs his hand over his hair and lower, glad to find the full set of school appropriate clothes hiding his skin – white collared shirt and breeches, high boots and a waistcoat.      

“Khem, khem” the woman remarks – “Such a bad boy you are, a hooligan and a liar!”

“By no means!” exclaims Harry, and takes a step back from the violent painting. “What is your insistence?!”

“Yes, a liar,” she croaks as if a toad – “Here I have a list – “unfolds a parchment – “of all the offences by thee committed, yet gone unpunished! Spare the rod is to spoil the child. You are a very spoiled child.”

Harry was about to protest, but the woman silences him with a familiar – “Don’t answer, me, Sir.” With great glee she evokes Harry’s sins – from the use of umbrella to Harry’s lack of religious knowledge – but how is Harry to even hear the sermon in the chapel full of chattering, nuts and raisins eating boys... – to the more serious offences.

The time his entire division – over a hundred boys in total - had been ordered by the principal to answer to their names each evening at eight o’clock, such following the expulsion of a favoured boy to have vehemently refused to subject himself to a flogging.

By an act of group disobedience the principal faced an empty room. Furious, he had the tutors bring in the boys, batch after batch, till no one remained unbeaten but Harry, for Harry’s punishment was to stay in his feather soft bed embracing a good night’s sleep.

Then, relentless woman, she narrates of Harry’s personal rebellion. Each day young Etonians are to know by heart about seventy lines, be it Greek testament, Homer and Virgil, Catullus and Horace, Tibullus and Propertius, Greek and Roman, Monday to Saturday. How it was to be done? Why, because the boys would be otherwise flogged for each lesson not learnt.

The first time Harry failed to recite his Virgil the teacher but moved on to examine another student. A repeat the day after for Horace, and the day after that Harry would not know Homer. Thus, he was given two verses of Old Testament to prepare instead of the common twelve, and still Harry refused to utter a word.

For the first and the only time Harry was engaged to see the principal, heart hopeful and soul grave in the knowledge of his great failings. The principal – a small man known for his diligent mind and perpetually bad temper, like a father he welcomed Harry to his chambers, had Harry sit down immediately and offered tea. With an honest concern he then proceeded to enquire after Harry’s health – have they sent for a doctor’s –

“For what else, Sir, but for the worst of inflictions, Sir, that thee, Sir, do thy school work but perfectly”.

Harry glares at the macabre painting where the red-headed witch adorned with fire, she hardly burns. Why else the benevolent expression in her eyes, raised corners to her lips, but for the flames not hurting her as she tames them with magic. Lady Evans, albeit a daughter to a merchant from London’s Cheapside, her voice and manners, her beauty and wit, green glowing orbs enamour Eton’s teachers and students alike. She strongly disapproves of any harm to come upon her beloved child, and her son is spoiled rotten – a little Lordling with not a hair missing from his cherished head, not a speckle of dirt on his shoes. To never bear the common hardships, to know neither strain nor hunger, no injustice he is to face, no mischievous joy. Not a shoulder he has to lean upon, no brother to support him, and no battle to lose…

Having met the principal Harry’s short-lived delinquency is no more. Out of shame and guilt and isolation Harry studies day and night. He is the model student as if to justify the preferential treatment to the world and himself.

His mother’s interference – for what else it can be – he tries to address but fails facing worry in his beloved mother’s eyes. Doubtlessly, he must endure. He must.

“Wretched boy, and on Monday you still would not know your verses. I am ashamed of you! Should I have ever applied myself to the Academics, I would have known all of the Classics by heart, for there is hardly a person in England to have more true enjoyment of the poetic tongue, or better natural taste!”

Along with his reminiscence the pink woman – Dolores Umbridge, for Harry recalls her name among the ladies Harry is to dance with, but is she a Lady in all but a name? – she finishes the reading of Harry’s sins.

“The principal awaits you” her sugary voice announces, “He is to make you remember the right from wrong. He is displeased. And do not you know that you deserve to be punished!”

Impatiently, Harry enters the next room and faces Tom.

 

***

 

Riddle sits behind the principal’s desk, pale skin adorned with a simple black robe, fingers entwined in a display of confidence, but his voice, Harry believes, holds a trace of awkwardness, as Riddle faces the impression of a younger Harry, gesturing – “Tea?”

“Well, dear Sir…” Riddle’s soft voice is to enquire after Harry’s health.

Inwardly Harry groans, as he is to relive an other worst memory, but has he? Is not it the game within Harry’s mind and Harry’s fantasy?

“You are all feverish, the cheeks flushed a shade of pomegranate, as you split it in halves, juicy seeds smear your fingers. Sick and febrile...”

“Not at all,” insists Harry, overwhelmed by this rather sudden turn of events, “I am perfectly sane in body and mind”.

“Well then, “ the corner of Riddle’s mouth rises in a predatory, asymmetric smile – “In this case, I have to wonder, why then your verses are lacking?”

“My verses?” For sure, it is Harry’s fantasy, so Harry controls where it goes, its speed and direction. He would very much prefer to discuss poetry over following the expressions of Riddle’s long fingers as he carves into imaginary fruits.

“Why, Mr. Potter,” Riddle is quick to paint Harry’s predicament – “You were given the task to write a verse on each member of the Trojan Royal house, as they rose to their highest, fell to their lowest – all under the watchful eyes of Gods. I am pleased to see your work on Aeneas – in loss of his house and founding of a new superior state; Cassandra’s laments, as her true prophecies, they could be a warning and salvation if taken a heed of, yet her gift was a cursed one that she saw the truth never to be trusted. You mention fair Helena, her torn between the loyalty to her first home and the sinful attractions of the second one…”

“Your hand is as masterly as your mind, Mr. Potter, as you are my prized, special student, deserving each and every privilege to set you apart from those limited fellows you share your lessons and house with. So it is my greatest pleasure and wish to guide you to the true greatness, offer you my wings to soar to heavens and beyond. Hence, it pains me to see your work incomplete…!”

There is a certain satisfaction to seize Harry, as the principal compliments him on the many hours Harry spent to refine his skills, as it grew obvious that beyond a few competitive sports where his talents would be most welcomed, Harry’s mark of being a “teacher’s pet” was giving him time a plenty to further his studies in a vicious cycle…

“Incomplete!” Riddle berates. “Having foregone the one most blessed of the mortals, a youth of ethereal beauty and sweetness, not even the King of Gods would know to tear away his eyes! Such a loveliness, it must be preserved for all eternity, for is not ambrosia the food and the drink of Gods?”

Riddle watches him with drunken eyes, as Harry is not to lose a dispute –

“Being indeed a Trojan prince, Ganymede has been taken by Zeus a generation or two preceding the one involved in the Trojan War. It was my understanding that I am to present but the subjects of actual relevance…”

“And why should an immortal prince whose very existence infuriated Hera long before his distant cousin’s unflattering choice; whom she faces day and night as he is the gods’ cupbearer, why is fair Ganymede but insubstantial in your eyes?”

“Perhaps,“ Riddle crosses his arms on the desk and lowers his head on them just so he can fixate Harry with his half-lidded eyes – “Perhaps, I have to teach you what an influence a beloved boy can have on those whom in power. Doubtlessly, it is a lesson as important as any I can impart upon you”.

Abruptly Riddle rises and is pacing from one corner of the room to the other and back again, as Harry is listening to the principal’s instruction –

“You, my dear Catamite,” – Riddle uses the Latin variation of Ganymede’s name to address Harry as if to imply an innovative angle to the events known “have grown not a day since I first saw you pure and alluring watch over your father’s sheep. As I plunged down upon you, catching you in my claws, as I turned a great eagle, lifting you high and above to my house in the skies, where I would make you immortal, as I could not bear the thought of your beauty fading, for what else can my eye feast upon but the precious face of my eternal companion?”

Harry tenses, as Riddle’s hand cups his cheeks and forces Harry to look up from where he was hiding between the curls of black hair, as Harry is internally debating if this was in fact how his fantasy is supposed to go.

“My freshest rose, why is it that you crave my attention on this fine day?” Riddle leans in so his lips but touch Harry’s ear, as he insinuates Harry’s needs.

“Troy” Harry coughs, taking a jump back, “I have come to enquire about Troy, Your Highness. It has been much in the news lately, so to speak…”

Luckily, Riddle’s presence retreats, as the man seats himself upon a high throne. Folds of fabric cushion Riddle’s body against cold stone. Harry is less fortunate as his only garment is a short cloak, and playing his part, Harry is made to kneel on mosaic floor.

Harry focuses his gaze on Riddle’s hands, as they fiddle with long silvery arrow, yet still an improvement over looking in deep red eyes.

“There is a little war going on. Nothing to concern yourself about… Unless, precious, you seek my arrow to strike a righteous aim…?” Riddle presents a lightning bolt to Harry crouching in front of Riddle’s feet.

„Your Highness…“ Harry wets his lips, as he shivers from cold and not any other circumstance, “Many years have passed since I gained a home away from home, yet betimes I think of the place of my origin and the family to have born you this lowly cupbearer, and I wish them well – to the country and people I come from, but they are not! In this war, this needless war great losses they suffer! It breaks my heart...”

There is no difficulty to pretend, the mere thought of something happening to Harry’s family and friends, to Lily and Hermione and Ginny, even Severus for all he never was the father Harry needed… To imagine the old House fall to nothing but dust and be it Greek or French or some new adversaries feast on the burnt remains of all that was good and safe and cherished… Harry would pay any cost, sacrifice everything to avert it, with all his might…

A sharp voice cuts Harry out of delusional frenzy –

“Your heart? How could such break your heart, if your heart is mine? Unless, precious, I err on the extent of your devotion? Perhaps it is just as fortunate if Troy I eradicated, for there cannot be any contest for where all of your affections go”.

“That is…” Harry is aboil at Riddle’s supposition, he is an inch away from jumping to his feet and tell His Highness a piece of his mind, but it is the thought of his family – his mother’s dulcet smile, his sister’s stubborn eyes, green music of the morning plains as Harry takes a walk over to the Weasley Cottage already planning for a long, joy filled day… Harry must endure.

“That is not true!” Harry cries vehemently, willing the Other to believe – “Whom can I love, but him who is the supreme amongst gods? How can he even be compared to lousy mortals, where my eyes are all but blinded by his inapprehensible power, as he sits above me! For his grace to have touched me I shall forever marvel…”

As he speaks so, Harry looks exactly in Riddle’s eyes, but to the end he abashedly lowers his head as if flustered by his own outburst. Time stills and all there is left is Harry’s heartbeat and his burning cheeks.

At last Riddle concedes - “I am not unwilling to listen to the plea of my beloved, of he who so pleases me.”

Riddle beckons, and Harry crawls hesitantly ere his face is a hand’s length away from Riddle’s bare feet.

“Of he, who worships me.”

***

There are some funny constellations the bluish veins follow on Riddle’s left foot, decides Harry. He thinks to observe the differences as to the patterns on Riddle’s right foot, as such foot, impatiently, lowers itself to the hollow of Harry’s cheek, dances over protrusion of Harry’s chin and pushes into the crevice between Harry’s lips.

It being but Harry’s dream, Riddle’s toes look sufficiently clean and smell of something acceptable, if not to say pleasing. Harry allows for a gap to form where his mouth is. It is obvious that now that Harry has an idea of what His Highness expects he is to do all the work, whilst Riddle lounges upon his throne getting amused.

I must endure, Harry determines and lavishes with his tongue a generous amount of saliva upon Riddle’s big toe, and then the next toe and one after that, as Harry alternately swallows and releases the phalanges to and from his mouth. Riddle’s skin is surprisingly tender, as if a young girl’s, as if Riddle never walks, but rather glides mere inches above mortal earth, as if he is the all-powerful being he proclaims to be.  

Wanting to see if it is just his tongue’s faulty impression, Harry’s fingers too move to capture Riddle’s foot, rub across the ankle joint, slide onto the arch… Riddle jerks, stifling laughter, tries to escape, but Harry would have nothing of it, as Harry runs his tongue all the way up Riddle’s flawless foot and looks up, demanding –

“Am I not pleasing you, Your Highness?”

He looks up in those red eyes, challenging Riddle to take all Harry has to offer, and eventually Riddle compromises – “Your Lord”.

“My Lord” agrees Harry, and takes possession of Riddle’s other foot to also occupy Harry’s mouth. Sucking toes, Harry’s tongue to swirl over flesh, his lips – to capture the faintest of warmth from ice blue veins, as he kisses himself a wet path all the way up Riddle’s marble like knees.

His Lord’s legs are white and hairless, as if a young Lady’s – as if sculpted by an able hand to forever sustain the instant of perfection ere it succumbs to dirt and decay.

As if a statue came to life.

Captivated by his Lord’s beauty, Harry anew raises his eyes to plead with his Lord to learn more, to pull away the offending fabric of his Lord’s chiton, as it covers the upper expanse of his Lord’s legs, but Harry has to see…

“My Lord…”

The plea leaves Harry’s lips and his Lord is merciful, for Harry is no longer thinking of home and family, for Harry is offering his heart in this rite of worship. For Harry sucks along the blue veins and caresses the soft thighs, and he is no longer afraid as he faces the result he worked so hard to achieve – an arrow filled with lightning and thunder, and it is Harry’s mouth that is the bow.   

***

His Lord lounges upon the throne, slender limbs haphazardly thrown apart, making space, welcoming Harry in their midst, as Harry knees so his mouth is at the same height as his Lord’s shaft, but Harry’s own appendage rises just above stone floor. Looking for more leverage Harry’s arms climb up the high seat’s handles, where they are promptly greeted by hands slender hot. With his Lord’s fingers covering his, a smile blossoms on Harry’s face, making him fearless and eager. Eyes upon his Lord’s mouth, Harry hovers over the fleshly mountain, dives in. His Lord curls his fingers within Harry’s fingers, and clenches his teeth. There is no sound to part from his Lord’s lips, no exclamation approving of Harry’s worship, so Harry applies all of the knowledge acquired by teasing his Lord’s fine toes, by licking his Lord’s chiselled thighs, now to regale his Lord’s spear.

Mischievously, his Lord shifts his feet approaching the life between Harry’s legs, rubs small circles at both sides of Harry’s shaft, fixing it between two points of inane pressure, taunting it to fly.

Stubbornly Harry works his mouth, wet tongue and oscillating cheeks, as he watches the Other breath sharply through glued teeth, blue vein stretched on his Lord’s neck, as in vain his Lord tries to break Harry’s concentration as his Lord’s toes polish Harry’s arrow.

Fingers entwined, Harry has every intention to run this marathon, consequences be damned, he is at the finishing inches. His Lord quivers and stills, and there is no sound but for scorching white rain, the lightning bolts to pierce sea of acid, and Harry is dissatisfied.

His mouth aches and his legs burn, desire unfulfilled, and Riddle removes his hands and kicks Harry off, lightly, not to hurt but to create a distance, so Harry sits on his cloak, front open and inviting, and has to touch himself because Riddle orders so.

“My Lord” Harry offers his scream. This second time the darkness evades him as if a shy maid. But Riddle lowers himself on top of Harry, crushing him with weight of his words, a melodious whisper of –

“Too bad, precious, that love fails in the face of blank steel…”

Riddle dissolves as if dying embers, stains Harry’s cheeks. Troy burns.

Harry runs the shadowy path towards home, shaking in implication that there is an unnamed evil to come at his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it is my intention to finish "Labyrinth" first and foremost, part four is to come in about two weeks, earlier if I can manage. 
> 
> Sorry for all the awkwardness.
> 
> \---  
> Midsummer Night's traditions; another round of quotes from “Reminiscences of Eton (Keate’s time)” by Charles Allix Wilkinson; Ancient Greek mythology.


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